Description
Five educational purposes identified for the BAWE corpus.The aim of this talk is to introduce the five social/educational purposes identified in Nesi and Gardner (2012) for the BAWE corpus of successful written university assignments.
Under the five purposes we identified 13 genre families. Each genre family contains different genres. For example, a discussion essay and an exposition essay both belong to the Essay genre family; a book review and an equipment evaluation both belong to the Critique genre family. Like the BAWESS project, our analysis was informed by Martin’s definition of genre as ‘the system of staged goal-oriented social processes through which social subjects in a given culture live their lives’ (1997: 13).
We did not assume that we knew the purposes in advance or from simply looking at the assignments, rather we investigated the context in which the assignments were produced – we looked at National degree benchmarks; National subject guidelines; University guidelines (assessment, PPD); Departmental documentation; we interviewed tutors and students; and we collected data about each of the assignments in our assignment submission forms.
We considered what was included and what was not included. The graduate attribute expectations pointed to our five social purposes, but here was also mention of International awareness, and no mention of Developing moral citizens.
The five social/educational purposes (with related genre families) are:
• demonstrating knowledge (Explanation, Exercise);
• demonstrating independent reasoning (Essay, Critique);
• building research skills (Literature Survey, Methodology Recount, Research Report);
• preparing for professional practice (Case study, Design Specification, Problem Question, Proposal);
• writing for oneself and others (Narrative Recount, Empathy writing)
The main university graduate attributes have probably remained constant, but the purpose of schools today might be different. The purposes we identified can provide a guide, but they should not be assumed. We expect the BAWE project to inform the BAWESS project, but we also expect differences.
| Period | 24 Jul 2025 → 25 Jul 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Bath, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |